#will be backtagging stuff

[vermillioncrown]

an actual AU snippet: a number of different selves

bc @rozaceous and i keep teehee-ing about 'folie a deux' and aaaaall the au's we have for our dc-siocs

money where the mouth is: bonus snippet + concept for followers

(it'll prob just be like my longer mdzs au's with one written part and the rest is just back and forth)

impetus: roz and i saw a shitpost where someone laughed at "bruce wayne x reader divorce" and said "he's already going through it and people are really inserting themselves in the narrative just to divorce him lmao"

which we then joked "damn we'd be set. he could have whatever mistress he wants as long as we could have financial support and leave us alone. we'll play his trophy wife"

and then we both realized that there would be things we couldn't let go if we ever caught wind of it. like it would drive us insane to abide by it. and thus...a version of our si's w bruce (yeah you heard me, both of us)

so here's a thing, bonus only for tumblr🙂

“I put you two in that meeting to clear up any hard feelings,” Lucius stares dead-on at his screen. He tries very hard not to pinch the bridge of his nose—composure needs to be maintained. “It can’t have gone that poorly.”

“Time is a finite resource for us lowly mortals and I’m not getting that hour back,” Vivienne grits out. “A fucking PA—where does he get off on his high horse? I hope he explodes.”

What?

“—know how many people work here, Lucius? Let alone just my division? And you’re wasting everyone’s time with each dead-on-arrival concept that gets shuffled into our portfolio and then ‘mysteriously’ yanked when it’s just good enough to Frankenstein into whatever high school science project that’s hiding in some Gotham sewer tunnel.” Her tirade is caustic and not hidden behind the typical red lipstick smiles. “Morale is dipping. There’s only so much you can pay to keep mouths shut and stop turnover.”

Vivienne makes very good points—the fact she has the acumen even three years ago was why WanyeTech moved to fund her PhD and fast-tracked her as a technical director upon entering the workforce. She caught on very quickly—too quickly—that there were private uses of certain advanced concepts within R&D, and she cared. Fortunately for WayneTech, her diligence meant increase in efficiency for the company; they’ve won several bids that have extended their reach into two new industries.

(Fortunately, WayneTech is privately held and not subject to public shareholder scrutiny.)

Unfortunately for the Batman, it meant additional roadblocks for his tools and supplies. It was by God’s grace, or something, that Vivienne didn’t decide to either blackmail them or whistle-blow. What she argued for was more oversight and appropriate man-hours and billing for certain projects that went towards a ‘private use case.’ The willingness to help (out of logistical fury) took a load off Lucius’s shoulders, but it put two new headaches in his skull: one next to each ear every time Vivienne or Bruce complained about each other peripherally.

“Does His Dark Grace think he’s not subject to g-forces?”

“Lucius. I asked for four different configurations. It should be able to fit.”

“Love his idealism—of course we have the manufacturing tolerances of an ant colony!”

“This is over-redundant and unnecessary. It gets in the way of visibility. I need a design change by two weeks.”

...and so on, so forth. So Lucius decided to cut himself out as the middleman and make the two talk to each other. A direct stakeholder meeting to capture requirements and fulfill proposals, so to speak in company terms. As both Bruce’s long-standing friend and Vivienne’s superior for her tenure at the company, he’s in the unique position to see the similarities in their personalities and (perhaps foolishly) believed they would get along after candid discussion.

And somehow, it all went to hell in a hand basket. That’s probably on Lucius for forgetting that adults were equally susceptible to playground scrapping as his six-year-old son. Thankfully, there’s less physical dirt involved or impromptu weapons, even if Vivienne looks ready to rip her stiletto heels off to use as a real stiletto.

“Vi, what do you need me to give?” Lucius straightens and prepares to negotiate. The greatest vulnerability of adding good talent is having more people in the know. Loose ends. It’d be a blow to lose Vivienne, but as long as she doesn’t talk—

“He’s lucky he’s a net good,” she snarls, now pacing in front of his desk. “He’s fucking lucky city statistics are on his side.”

“Vivienne.”

She stops mid-rant. “What.”

“Are you terminating our agreement?”

Vivienne takes a few calming breaths before rearranging her stance into something more office-appropriate rather than riled up before taking part in an illicit cage match. “No, Chief Fox. I am not,” she answers with a placid smile, tone light and even.

“Then, what would make your life easier?” Lucius does understand that she’s doing them a huge favor at an equally huge cost from herself. There’s a lot of duties that are more effort and well-beyond what someone her pay grade should need to touch; the delicate situation requires her to be equal parts every role for end-to-end conceptual design to manufacturing.

When Lucius scouted Vivienne Yang from her undergrad in Gotham University, it was by chance—there were technical managers scouting and giving PR for various capstone projects, and he decided to tag along. There, as he was browsing various posters, is where he found her. The work done by her team wasn’t novel (just par for the course with undergraduate engineers), but it was the polish that caught his eye. A methodical approach to answering the prompts given by the capstone courses, justified scope, and structured analysis and design choices that made her team’s final concept (proposed electric car design) stand out. Their value proposition considered necessary support infrastructure and manufacturing as part of their considerations.

He called them ‘her team’ because it was clear that, despite being barely 5’6” with pointed choice of footwear and surrounded by young men over a head taller with the typical engineers’ mannerisms to boot, she called the shots. Oh, of course, her teammates contributed to the questions he asked (”Andy,” young-Vivienne barked, and Team Member Andy jumped in to answer about the drivetrain sizing), but she was the systems integrator.

This was the type of skill that took years to build—usually, years of practical experience on the job—and she had it as intuition. And when Lucius corrected certain assumptions on their design, she didn't take it personally but was instead able to promptly speculate how that would shift their design point.

Thus, he put out an immediate sponsorship for her to grab an advanced degree (or two), school of her choice, research topic to be approved by whatever technical manager in WayneTech that acted as her liaison, and would jump into a stable job with a salary and employee benefits other grad students could only dream of.

Landing something as prestigious as Director of Advanced Concepts, slated for Chief Technology Officer by her 30s, in a Fortune 500 company? Barring the fact that the work was based in Gotham, crime capital of the United States, it would be something like pure fantasy to any aspiring engineer.

She took the sponsorship offer, and Lucius learns over the years that she financially supports her family living out-of-state and genuinely enjoys the various industries that intersect within WayneTech’s R&D. She likes a job well done, is practical and professional (if not overly enthused) when defense-related bids come across their table, and disdains many of the big research or tech conglomerates that make the news for various crimes or “waste of brain cells and human effort.”

Her morals aren’t obvious, but Vivienne’s choice to support Lucius’s efforts to protect Bruce in his uphill crusade is her character vouching for the Batman, even if she dislikes the actual man behind the mask and his design requirements. That she considers it still of worth is something that Lucius needs to compensate her for.

Lord knows had Bruce actually gone through with that projectile design, he’d have already lost an eye. If Vivienne says his proposed ‘Batplane’ design will vibrate into smithereens, he’s inclined to trust her on that.

“I’m going to start calling him an idiot and vetoing stupid requirements,” Vivienne declares, one eyebrow raised like she’s daring him to object.

“You mean you haven’t been doing that already?”

“Lucius, I have been nothing but polite to him. You have the CCs,” she refutes, looking at him incredulously.

He’s not sure by whose standards her scathing emails can be considered ‘polite’, but of course she can be worse. He needs to smooth this out, redo the first meeting ASAP. His hairline can’t take more of this.

“Fine, alright. Just—let’s try to set up another discussion. I’ll attend this time.”

Vivienne actually snorts. “Guess I’m never beating the PA allegations.” She looks down at her watch. “Fuck. Should have just written you an angry email. How am I going to make it five blocks in ten minutes?” She mutters and just as suddenly as she invaded his office, she strides out with a distracted, “Okay thanks, I’ll continue this later.”

He’d rather she not, but it seems she’s sticking around the Wayne Enterprises HQ building to call into her upcoming meeting; he hears her requesting a fresh notepad, a hot cup of coffee, and a private conference room and everyone outside honors those requests immediately.

That’ll give Lucius about two hours to process Vivienne’s rant, track down Bruce for his side of the story, and figure out how to smooth things out. It shouldn’t be unreasonable.

His phone call to Bruce shatters his expectations.

“You called Director Yang my what?”

[jacksmusesdrv3]

I swear to- here I am capping some stuff due to an analytical discussion with a friend, I lag for too long and this shit happens-

Introducing: Hardjime and Nagithoe

[kingofthering]

tattoo artist Bezz AU thought : Cele definitely carries sunscreen in his fanny pack and insists on the guys protecting their tattoos when they're out at the skatepark in the middle of the day (and he's the one who ends up with the tip of his nose and his cheeks all red until he gets together with Bezz and Bezz takes care of putting sunscreen on him, pushing his thumbs against Cele's cheekbones and everything)

[existentialterror]

how would you define dr. lights gender identity?

Let me give you way too many words for a boring answer. (And of course, this is how I see her, anyone is welcome to headcanon her in any damn way they please.) In short: mainstream-Light (not an O5, not a god) is cis by default. She does not have a strongly-felt gender identity and is a little skeptical that anyone does. In the same way that I (known asexual) will still hear someone say like “a good sex life is important to me in a relationship” and at first think “yeah, sure,” that’s her w/r/t anyone having much of a gender.

Her presentation wiggles a little. She used to present fairly femme. Autism, masking, even after leaving her family she found it easier to get along if she has a Role she can Perform clearly enough. People come up to her. She gets a little more flexibility. Mars comes around with her dapper aesthetic and suddenly Light has a place to fit in, a role to belong to without tying her down. She accumulates clothing with tolerable textures and figures out enough Fashion to put together outfits.

When Light's old world ends and she's recruited to the Foundation, she has to figure out who she is from scratch. The Foundation is unlike anywhere she's worked before. For all its faults, the Foundation does care less about certain things.

When she finally puts some effort into her appearance, she goes for Utility rather than any particular aesthetic. She wants to look formal and trustworthy but mostly doesn’t want to have to think about it. Her hair is long enough to get it out of the way. She doesn't wear makeup because she doesn't like things on her face, and also, who wants to bother. She orders clothing out of online catalogs and tugs at the sleeves of shirts that don’t quite fit right.

When she breaks her hand badly and can’t always get the braces through the buttons, she ignores it and fights her way through for as long as she can. It comes to a head after her breakdown when she has to replace most of her wardrobe, which she should have done months ago. In her defense, you never really get in the habit of remaking your existence.

You’re still making choices, her psychiatrist tells her. It's fine not to worry about it. You don’t have to be making a statement about everything all the time. But you can’t completely sacrifice fashion at the altar of practicality – that’s not how it works, there is no such thing as truly neutral clothing. Are you sure you don’t care what people think of you? (For other reasons, Dr. Sabourin is one of Light’s worse psychiatrists.)

Light thinks she can get pretty close to pure practicality, thank you very much. When she’s promoted to Level 4, she tries on thirty six different brands and sizes of garments, and buys a closet full of the best ones - the exact same white Oxford shirts, camisoles, and those yoga pants that look like black business pants. Throw in some synthetics for exercising and she's good. She never needs to think about it ever again.

Later she adds one detail – and if it’s a little bit to spite Sabourin, that’s fine, she’s made her peace with it by then – which is the wingtips. She falls in love with a particular Italian workshop and orders a new pair every other year. They’re custom-made, exactly like men’s shoes but smaller, because her feet are small. They are, objectively, worse than sneakers: more expensive, less comfortable, less traction. She kicks her feet against her desk, scuffing the leather, and stares at the broguing. She really likes these shoes. It’s silly, right? It’s silly.

Ten years down the line, she finally, quietly, stomachs the thought: Mars would have worn these.

Even that much later, her closet is basically identical. Her system is fucking good, thank you. The additions are a few outlier outfits for special occasions. One shirt that is A Color (green) and has some embroidery, for casual events. A few t-shirts with various animals on them received as presents, that are not accounted for by her system but get worn nonetheless. A suit, for weddings and such. Boots and cold weather gear for dayhikes and seabird-watching in Svalbard. A single clean labcoat for when she needs to appear somewhere as A Member Of Senior Staff(TM) (and she will complain to anyone nearby about that not being the point of a labcoat, because of who she is. But she sees Sabourin’s point by now, clothing is about signalling as much as comfort.)

Light doesn’t know what the wingtips mean. She doesn't need to. Mostly, what she wants to signal is “I want you to listen to me" and "I want to get back to work.”

-------------------------

That said, Light, of course, comes in different versions with their own stories going on. It doesn’t really surprise any of them that they have different gender situations, except in as far as provoking questions like “some of us sure seem to have different chromosomal situations, how does that work? If we’re not genetic clones what does that even mean for us to be the same person??”

O5-2 "The Nazarene"’s story is different. I want to do more with her but need to up my weird esoteric gnostic queer theology game before I commit to anything. But I’m tentatively thinking something like: You need to be a certain kind of person to be the son of god. To be responsible for everyone. You can present as whatever the hell you want, but for certain ploys to work, people – even just a group of people that happen, for no good reason, to be at the center of the universe for a few moments – need to believe you. It’s easiest to believe it yourself.

If you’re already serious about being responsible for everyone, for becoming an icon, you don’t even need to think about the question: do you want to become this kind of person? Of course you do. It’d be like thinking “I want to bake bread, but do I want to be the kind of person who kneads bread?” You can stress over this. It’s totally possible. No one’s stopping you.

But you can also just knead bread.

No one’s stopping you.

[cartoonrival]

also everyone in naruto is 12 years old and not even in the sonic the hedgehog way where its like ok technically this is the age that they are but they dont really act like it for various reasons outside of the text. the characters are like deeply critically canonically 12 years old AND THATS SO SSAD.

[flustersluts]

woah, maybe it's a cultural thing? that's so cool to me! i love learning about jargon specific to a certain country or etc. normally, that's what i think of a haircut too but once i started living with my stepdad, that definition became more broad. also not to switch topics too much if you wanted to keep it in the tags but i feel you about achieving that one sweet spot of where you want to be appearance-wise. it is hard but i hope that makes it worth it when you succeed, even when it isn't in the way you initially envisioned or planned. even though you haven't felt good about it in that timeframe, it appears that you've recognized the problem now, having self-reflected, and that in of itself is the first step to fixing it like you said with ur inner peace! sorry if this isnt all that clear, im not someone who struggles with dysphoria or is trans but i try to speak from a place of empathy. maybe to you, that's a great idea. but to me, i'm not sure.... what if you did something while i couldn't see? i can almost picture it now like... just taking one of your hands out of my grasp and letting them wander or putting a collar (!!) around my neck. but you wouldn't do that, not while i'm giving my all to clean your fingers, right? i mean, i'm doing my absolute best and focusing my attention on you to make sure i do the job correctly. even if you are staring down at me with a look in your eyes.. but i mean, if you want me to close my eyes, maybe it's for the best! yeah! but i cant help feeling nervous now 😖

yea idk may b a uk thing! i think a buzzcut wld yknow. defnitely fall under a haircut but it's one-directial, like if i say buzzed then by definition i don't mean with scissors even if a haircut is both?

and hey, listen, I think what it comes down to is that if you're concentrating real hard, if you're focusing your attention on my fingers in your mouth, if you're devoted to making sure I'm clean, then that's already an act of trust, right? and if you trust me, then you have to know that I'd never do anything you didn't want me to, even with your eyes closed. And if I did do anything, then it'd only be because I'm trying to make the experience more pleasant for you, right? So really, all you have to do is focus and I'll handle the rest, promise!

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Like do you want the platinum clan to be present thing that neither clan can see.

Like ingo makes the sinnoh government.

see Platinum Clan is definitely an au-of-an-au bc i think in canon living history the leaders were gone for like, a week. maybe two, while they regrouped and then went and hit dialga with a newspaper until it put them Back.

in that au though! i think that's very fun! i'm still really into the idea of the future-gang visiting/helping out at some archeological digs and slowly unraveling their home's future at the same time modern sinnoh is discovering the distant past. maybe there's also some very vague stories about how the gym-leader-champion structure got its start in sinnoh, which they find Weird bc obviously they've never seen it, until they get to researching how exactly it started and hey wait a minute

[zecchou]

need a fucking post it note to remind me to tag art on @galleryofzecchou with year of make when i queue it

[mariasinistre]

Lucy first realizing she inherited The Voice

[xellandria]

So, like, after a year of trying to get a referral and having to switch therapists and medication providers (twice) my insurance approved the first eight treatments of a nasally-ingested(?) depression med which is supposed to work significantly better and significantly faster than traditional oral medications. It’s also, like, derived from horse tranquilizers? so there’s a lot of weird shit out there from both sides of the line.

Anyway today was my first appointment and aside from feeling tired (which is both expected because I was sitting in a quiet, dark room alone for two hours afterwards and because I didn’t sleep well last night) nothing’s really changed; supposedly folks typically experience a (temporary) lifting of their mood even with the first dose and so I’m worried that I’ve spent the last year chasing this and it’ll be just as much of a dud as all the oral medications and the TMS have been, but also it feels weird to just write it off on the first try, heh.

Also not gonna lie, was kind of secretly hoping to trip balls (which is a pretty common side effect and also why folks use this shit recreationally) just so I could experience what that was like without going out of my way specifically to experience it, lmao :x Maybe next time.

[tele-mesmerism]

i rly want a general disability tag but no idea what.. u_u i like sick but it doesnt feel right for me.. i want it vague and not like. intense

[radiomogai]

there are SO many Corruption-related terms. we thought we could go through and backtag several of the fear entity tags, but no, we've only been able to do The Buried and part of The Corruption, though it's been a few hours. damn

[evil-gender]

i am not super consistent as to whether i tag non-minecraft related posts about mcyt ccs with #mcyt. well, i am consistent-ish, but there isn’t really a logic to “if it’s a random picture of wilbur soot it’s less likely to get the mcyt tag than anything else”

[chaos-cousins]

//ooc

Hey guys I realized I probably should have a tag to block teal mask stuff so I made one and backtagged my posts

Block "Beneath The Mask" if you don't wanna perceive the teal mask arc

[i-write-sin-not-tragedy]

While i typically dont often reblog anything TOO nsfw in terms of art (mostly bc tumblr is stupid about porn lol) i AM a smut writer (i do some sfw and platonic stuff!) And would be totally down with answering askes about it! I wont get too rated on here (i save that for my friends on discord LMFAO) and i will start tagging nsfw-ish stuff with "Spicey" so it's easy to backtag but overall yes this is my "hey dont be afraid to ask nsfw questions!" Announcement LOL

[sapphictolkien]

Just another announcement to share that I’ve backtagged all posts with the creator’s handle and added to the tag page a list of creators, broken into creators who have a single post on the blog and those with multiple posts, so it’s easier to find femslash creators.

If you are new to following the blog I highly recommend browsing through the old posts, because while the queue is good to run for a while, there’s lots of good stuff already on here!